Next Super Smash Bros. being developed by Namco Bandai, Sakurai still directing

Since Nintendo is busy with so many other projects for the 3DS and the Wii U's launch, Namco Bandai will be developing the upcoming Super Smash Bros. sequel for Wii U and 3DS. Yes, Namco; no, not Nintendo.

In yet another Nintendo tease-and-leave, the new Super Smash Bros. was mentioned during tonight's Nintendo Direct broadcast, but no new screenshots or gameplay were shown.

Super Smash Bros. 4 will still be directed by series creator Masahiro Sakurai and his team Project Sora, but it will be developed in conjunction with Namco Bandai superstars Yoshito Higuchi, of the Tales franchise, and Kenya Kobayashi of Ridge Racer fame.

Look forward to more news later this year, but don't expect a release date any time soon.

Update: Namco Bandai developer Masaya Kobayashi expressed his sentiments over the co-project and dropped several more names:

"In order to make Mr. Sakurai proud, we will take on this project with NAMCO BANDAI's best staff! Yoshito Higuchi, the producer and the director of the Tales series, Tetsuya Akatsuka, producer and director of Mobile Suit Gundam: Extreme Vs., the art director/sound director of the SoulCalibur series, the main development team staff from the TEKKEN series…and that's just for starters."

This is bad, namco bandai is involve with the super smash bro, there a chance that this game will be Japan only, since Namco bandai has a record of not releasing games world wide like the tales of games.

Considering Nintendo owns Smash bros the decision is ultimately up to them, not Namco to release Smash Bros. If they wanted to they could cancel Smash bros 2 days before release.

There is absolutely no chance of Smash Bros remaining exclusive when it is easily Nintendo's best seller worldwide. The true question is, will Europe get shafted again?

the last installment (i thought) wasnt very good. there are too many characters and there arent enough older stages to fight in. bring the same thing to 3ds and not have nintendo make it. well i dont think it will be very good...